Clean Sheets
by Mrs S Eyre
Summary: There's a face I know . . .
1. Default Chapter

I've had this written for some time but hesitated about posting it because it seems a little redundant now; still, it's not very long (2 parts) and might pass a few vacant minutes for anyone interested in Zhilliaan.

Usual disclaimers apply; archive if you want and review if you feel moved so to do – it is always helpful.

Shellie

**Aide d'Oublier – part one of two**

I don't like airports, don't like rail stations, never have. I love travelling, love to be in motion, love to arrive; I've tried to love the point of departure as part of all that but I can't. These places always seem so sad, all those goodbyes hanging in the air, so sad.

But I've hardly thought about that today, waiting for John's flight, willing Charles not to speak to me. I'm not in motion, not going anywhere and this feeling in the pit of my stomach isn't anticipation. When we leave here it won't be for the start of anything but for an end of something. I don't know what, I don't know what.

Sure I do.

......................................................................................................

You get your shots, you take your anti-malarial pills; you pack toilet paper and tampons and chocolate and a couple bottles of something to keep you warm and a couple packs of condoms in case you find something better to keep you warm, and I usually do. I need it as much as the quinine, something warm and sweet to hold onto, something to lose myself in, just a little protection, an _aide d'oublier_

I've developed an eye for them over the years, I'm good at it. A day to settle in, to get used to the heat, the smell, the feel of sweat constantly on my skin, the crowds, the desperation; and then a glance around to gauge the possibilities, and I know that they've been doing the same. Some of them I can write off straight away, the dull, the too eager, the plain unattractive, but there's usually one. He was it, he was it in spades, impossible not to notice, poster boy for tall dark and handsome. At first I thought he was married although I couldn't say why, and I'd begun to process the risks of going after him anyway. A sly glance showed me no wedding ring but there was something . . .

The women and girls who came to the clinic would giggle and flutter their eyelashes at him and he'd smile or sometimes even laugh a little and wink at the littlest girls and move on to the next case. He was so good with the children it threw me to start with. He had children of his own, surely. I knew he was from Croatia, had my own thoughts about what that might mean, knew he came to us from Chicago but he gave nothing else away. So I asked him, finally got him alone about 3 days in and asked him. No, he had no wife, no children, no-one at home, and there was something in his tone which told me not to ask anything more. Fair enough. Whatever happened it wasn't going to be for the long haul, was it? He was smart, and funny and kind of sweet and after a couple of drinks that night I saw that wicked grin and a couple of drinks after that I got up and held out my hand to him and he took it.

The first time hardly counts I've found. It's not about finesse, it's hardly even about pleasure. It's about sealing the deal and the deal was sealed and after the day we'd both had we didn't want to do anything but sleep then. But later, when I woke up to finds his hands on me, that was sweet and that's where I made my mistake, and I tell myself now that it was because I was still half stupid with sleep.

That first _real_ time you have to be careful because then, in the afterglow, that's when evolution's little endocrinal trick catches you and you persuade yourself you're in love. I'm on my guard, always on my guard because once before it got the better of me and it wasn't until afterwards, when three months had gone by without so much as a 'phone call that I saw what I'd done. Since then I've brought the shutters down by sheer force of will, let myself like them even grown fond of them but never again fallen into that trap, always escaped the lure that's trying to keep us in each others' beds until the reproductive imperative has been satisfied, the trick that makes you believe you can love man without knowing him. It's a good trick.

And I tried this time too; tried and failed, failed hugely, failed and fell, hook, line and sinker.

In the dark he lit a cigarette and for a moment his face was illuminated, very beautiful, a living De La Tour, and voila, another deal sealed, a deal that wasn't even on the table.

Still, I'm good, I can smile and smile and well, not be a villain exactly but be something I'm not. You talk to enough dying kids you get pretty good at that pretty quick. And so it all went according to plan for a few days, a few days and a few nights. I knew for a fact that he wasn't caught in the same predicament, hadn't fallen victim to that dangerous post-coital lure. He'd stuck to the rules and I was pretty sure he didn't notice that I hadn't.

I expected to go to Matenda with him. When Charles brought the vaccines and he said he'd go I told him I'd go with him and he didn't say no. In the night I woke up to find him leaving my bed and I assumed he needed to pee or something and I went back to sleep. When I woke up alone I threw some clothes on and went looking for him but he'd been gone an hour by then.

I cursed him, bit back the disappointment and the hurt I had no right to feel at being duped - or dumped, I wasn't sure which; I thought Angelique was going to say something but the look I gave her shut her right up. I know what she thinks, I know she's waiting for me to fall flat on my ass like before, so I smiled and shrugged. She saw right through me.

But then new excitement. Charles came back from Kinshasa with supplies and a new boy in tow. American, he looked like he'd just woken up on Jupiter or something. He was scared and shocked and he didn't speak any French and not for the first time I wondered what sort of orientation the AMI were giving these days. Still, he was cute in a clean cut sort of a way and for a minute I wondered whether he might not be an opportunity for revenge.

When he told us he worked with Luka in Chicago I think I may have blushed. She's there again, Angelique, asking what he's like at home and I don't want to hear, don't want to know. What's home anyway? We're not there, we'll never be there. Home for me, Montreal, Jean, shift work, laundry, housekeeping, safety, we'll never be about that, never. But where before that thought brought comfort, now it's a knot in my stomach.

Three days turned into six days turned into nine days and I was unprepared for the anxiety I felt, unprepared for how hard it was to pretend it didn't matter. But no news is good news, right? He'd be back, he'd be back soon

You haven't seen rain 'til you've seen African rain. I didn't know what a deluge was until I'd spent 15 seconds in it and been soaked to my bones. The sound of it on the roof almost drowned out Angelique's shouted instructions that night he came back, bloodstained so that for a moment I thought a bullet or a blade had found him. We didn't even look at one another, got down to work, although I felt him watching as John persisted with the hopeless case on the table in front of us, not able to let go, learning a lesson we all had to learn and learn fast. I didn't know then how much it would matter that the boy had happened on a rookie, how much it would matter that Angelique let him carry on. But it did, it mattered.

Eunice, the Scottish girl I share a room with doesn't smoke so cigarettes won't do it; it takes a bar of soap, a bottle of shampoo and my two month old copy of Cosmopolitan to get her to go find somewhere else to sleep and even then she grumbles as I pull on clean underwear and brush my hair.

"He'd better be worth it."

"I'll let you know."

"Spare me."

Vodka, a fresh pack of cigarettes. I was still pissed with him as I made for the lounge but I know myself and I knew what it was going to take to bring me round and it didn't include a long apology. A look, a kiss, a smile. Think I'm easy? Sure I am but you know, life's too short. There some things they don't know here like who won the last American Idol or how many calories in an egg white omelette, but they know that.

So, my plan; pour him a drink, say I'm glad he finally managed to drag himself away from the delights of Matenda, let him toy with the idea of an apology and then smack him right in the mouth with my own and let nature take its course. Deep breath, open the door.

Damn. Damn, damn, damn.

John, looking like shit, watching as Luka smoked a cigarette. Damn. I poured the drink but I gave it to John; I was all solicitude but that was for John too. Luka watched it all, not speaking, looking anywhere but at me and suddenly I was tired and so sad that I wanted to cry, and I left my drink and the two of them but before I went I said I hoped someone would join me in bed. I wasn't even sure he'd come to me; but he did. When I opened the door he waited to be asked in. He looked around the room, too tall for its confines, nearly smiling.

"Eunice?"

"Eunice is . . . busy."

"Busy?"

"Washing her hair."

He nodded.

"So . . . how was Matenda?"

"Worse than here."

"You were supposed to be gone three days."

"Lots to do." He took the drink I offered him, sat on the edge of my bed. "I have to go back tomorrow. I came back for supplies."

"Tomorrow? You have a woman there or something?"

He looked at me for the first time, really looked, and reached out to pull me between his knees, rested his face against me. I felt rather than heard his "No."

"Well, " I said, leaning down to rest my face on his hair, still damp from the shower, "you do here"


	2. Part Two

Part Two/Two

Author's note: the phrase I've used as the title of this piece has been used many times by a French friend of mine, usually in a humourous way and often in the context of a few drinks after work – the opposite of aide memoire. If it's not an authentic French phrase I take it to be a play on words like "hidden shallows" - not strictly speaking n accepted phrase at all but a humourous reversal of the usual hidden depths.

If I have misspelt it my apologies.

......................................................................................................

"So, Gillian, you have anything planned for the next couple days?"

"I don't know – I could use a manicure and a facial. I thought maybe I could catch a movie, get some sushi. Why?"

"Vaccine. Angelique's sending me up country."

"Yes? Where?" I'm pretty sure I didn't sound as casual as I hoped.

"Matenda."

"Matenda?" A shrug. "Sure, why not."

When I looked at him John was grinning, but I waited until he was gone before I grinned back.

......................................................................................................

The journey wasn't pleasant. I could feel Patrique's sadness, and his anger, as we drove through what he said had been beautiful country and was now a slaughterhouse. John's still shocked; when will he stop being shocked? I don't remember how long it took me to get used to this; maybe I was just better at covering up. To myself I mean.

He's surprised to see me. My eyes have been starved of him for too long and he looks so good I want to laugh but I don't. Instead we exchange a look that makes no pretence about what we'll be doing later and I head off to the front of the queue snaking its way round the clinic smiling to myself but some of the women look at me as though they recognise that smile and they smile back.

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Discomfort, it's a relative thing. Too hot, too cold, bad food, tepid showers, musty sheets. Clean sheets – really there's nothing relative about those, they're an absolute and every year when I get back to Montreal that's my treat; my first night I spend alone between clean sheets. I can smile just thinking about that.

Matenda was relative too – relatively horrible. Kisangani was crowded and fly blown but Matenda, it was tent city aside from the clinic itself. We slept and cooked and ate and worked under canvas, the sound of the generator enough to drive you crazy, the smell of the latrines enough to make you heave. But, with lights strung up, Willie Nelson to dance to and Luka to dance with it was relatively . . . beautiful.

And then the shelling and shooting started and it all went to hell. Still – I learned a lot in Matenda. I learned that Charles went to college in Texas and I learned that Luka can . . . could . . . dance; I learned that the screams of an eight year old girl with her foot blown to pieces can burn themselves into your brain; I learned that, even as I fought to control my bowels and bladder, I could hold a little girl's leg steady; and I learned that a demand for a kitchen knife, a saw and a suture kit sprang to Luka's lips like it was something he asked for every day and I think I learned that maybe once it had been.

He didn't know what else I learned, what I heard him saying to John in the forest the next morning when he thought I was sleeping. "My children were dead." And I learned, not for the first time, that when a man doesn't want you to know you had better not know, had better stifle the little cry you felt in your throat, had better not tighten your hold on him, had better stay asleep.

I didn't know that the last time we made love would be the last time, that the next time I looked at his body it would be . . . well, you don't, do you? I saw him go outside with Charles, saw John follow, heard his voice raised, saw him walk away, knew it wasn't good. And my God, where did he get off telling me I had to go! John seemed to think it was funny, watching us argue. It wasn't. I could feel the panic rising. I knew that if he wanted to he could pick me up and throw me bodily into the truck and I'd have no choice. I didn't want to go, to leave him and I hated that, hated it and I was so angry with myself, but all I could do was argue about the patients, scoff at the idea that Patrique could be of any use to him, told him he couldn't manage without me but the truth was I didn't want to manage without him. It's such a tiny step from opening your arms to opening your legs but I hadn't bargained on the next step, the biggest step, opening my heart, and I felt ridiculous, bickering about the boy with pertussis and the amputee when all the time it was really about me.

He tried to be reasonable. "Hey, it's just for a couple of days and then you can come back and get us." Yeah, a couple of days, a couple of nights. But what happened next made it all meaningless anyway.

If I thought I'd been terrified before I was wrong. This was terror so pure that it had a kind of fascination; this was terror that froze the blood – you know that's a cliché because it's true – and set my heart racing. Luka, kicked to his knees, gun to his head, the rest of us ordered down too. The government soldier whimpered and begged and all I could think was that if the Mai Mai fired then Luka's skull and brains would be all over me. I couldn't see his face but there was no submission in the line of his back, the set of his head and I felt sick then because I didn't think defiance was flavour of the month with the Mai Mai. John though, he was like me. I could see my terror in his face when I dared look, saw the tears not far from his eyes. I understood the words the rebel leader spat at him, dimly recognised the young boy from somewhere but couldn't make any sense of the words or of him. I nearly threw up when the head thug came back in our direction, shoved Luka and slapped me forward onto the ground. The terror was still there on John's face, blurred because I was crying. He could see what we couldn't; what could he see? Guns taking aim at Luka? At me?

The soldier they finally shot, right behind us, I felt those shots in my chest, my ears left ringing. You'd think the tears I cried then were tears of relief, wouldn't you? They weren't. I don't know what they were, even now. Misery, pity, despair, tears for all of us, I don't know. But not relief.

......................................................................................................

He got his way though, there was no arguing after that. A last kiss while John and Charles waited. I didn't know it was the last kiss or I don't think I could have let go. He was very tender. I hated that.

I pulled my hand away from his although he hung on as long as he could. John said something to him but I didn't hear what. Did I cry? I think I did; I know I cried as we drove away when I finally couldn't see him through the rear window anymore; I know John stroked my hair like I was a child. I know I made for the radio as soon as we got back to Kisangani and then did nothing because I didn't know what to say. I wanted to tell him that I missed him already, that I wanted him like I had some sort of sickness, that I felt like a cat on hot coals, needed to feel his hands on me. And then I thought of Chance and her mother, of the boy and his father, of Patrique. How could I say that?

I don't think I was even surprised when we heard that his name was on the list. I got drunk, so drunk I threw up; and after I called John and spoke to some woman I didn't know I did it again, and I had nightmares, dreamed of his body, the body I'd felt over me, under me, inside me, bloodied, hacked to pieces, corrupt. And I tried to wish I hadn't seen his face lit by the glow of a match and sealing the deal for me. I tried; but I couldn't wish that.

........................................................................................................

Charles doesn't try to talk to me. John's flight will be here soon and then we'll have to talk. I don't want to talk ever again. The tears come so readily that I feel like I'm melting, or maybe I wish I was. I think perhaps I'm a little crazy now.

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I had a dream about clean sheets, clean, white, cotton sheets and him. Maybe if we find him alive . . . .

There won't be any clean sheets for us. I know what we'll find if we find anything at all, I've seen it before. I don't know if I can do that, look at him like that, bloated, blackened, stinking. We'll shovel whatever is left of him into a box and seal it up and maybe we can send it back home, let his father put him in a grave I'll never visit. No clean sheets for us.

When I get back I'll do what I always do; drop off my stuff, shower, change and head out toward the hill, look at the sculptures, watch the sun on Beaver Lake. Maybe this time I'll give the cemeteries a miss, and at the top of Mont Royal I'll look down at the river and sit in the sun and try not to cry. And then I'll go home and unfurl the clean sheets onto my bed, pour myself a beer; I wonder if I'll be able to sleep in those sheets this time? I think maybe not.


	3. Part Three

CLEAN SHEETS III 

You know it's a funny thing but the first time you smell death you know what it is, like it's a memory we all share. I don't know how it works but it's true, ask anyone. I knew it the first time I smelled it; I've smelled it a lot since that first time but that place, that school, whatever it was, I've never smelled anything like that, like all the death in the Congo – and that's a lot of death – had been gathered up into that one place. It stayed in my nose afterwards for a long time along with something worse – hope. When we found Patrique I thought I knew how it was going to end, thought I'd have to look at him, maybe like Patrique, his face all but gone, everything that made him who he was stripped away.

But no, the white guy wasn't him, I registered that while I gagged and retched and held my hair across my face to keep that stink out. Ridiculous. The guy we found, he was someone's son, brother, lover, but he wasn't Luka, he wasn't Luka and part of me hated him for not being Luka. John was yelling at the guy with the gun who looked at him like he was asking directions to the nearest gas station.

A priest? What? He said Luka was a priest and he didn't say he was dead. Jesus, I'd thought it would all be over by now, but we get back in the truck and it all starts again. Jesus.

It seemed very quiet in the back of that truck with Chance, her mother, John, some others, and Patrique who will never speak again. It wasn't actually quiet, it was a noisy truck, but it was silent for me because Luka never made a sound from the moment we found him and John pulled him over onto his back and felt for a pulse, to when we lifted him into the truck, his head in my lap, to when we got him to Kisangani and I don't remember how long that took. Not a sound but I could see the little flutter of a pulse in his throat, under the dirt and the blood. Not a sound. He had no colour at all except for the wound on his jaw and the smear of blood from his nose and the indigo shadows under his eyes. You could have looked at him and thought he was dead and my eyes went to that flutter in his throat time and again so that I knew he wasn't.

I tried to stay with him but Angelique shooed me away while they set him up with fluids and antibiotics and then they said that we should just wait. In the end I got John to let me wash his face and his hands, trying not to look at the welts on his wrists, trying not to speculate about the damage to his face, but it was like washing a corpse. It was then that it came to me that if we'd been a day – maybe even just a few hours – later it would have been too late and all the strength went out of me, out of my legs and I sat down on the floor, pulling the basin of water over with me. Charles and Basinake came running, picked me up, made me sit with my head low. I didn't know what had happened because I took in the wetness from the basin down my trousers and thought I'd peed and started to cry.

And still Luka never made a sound.

After that I slept for hours but he was still out cold when I went back to him and watched as John stood over him, hand on his wrist, told me his pulse was better, fever dropping and he'd mend. He reached and pushed Luka's hair out of his face surely not aware of how tender the gesture was, and then, out of nowhere, he looked at me, stricken, and said that Luka wasn't who he'd thought he was and if that was true then maybe . . . but he didn't finish because Luka had opened his eyes. His voice was barely there.

"Where?"

"Kisangani. Centre of the known universe. Jesus, Luka, avoiding Weaver I can understand, but faking your own death?" Luka didn't look for me and I felt invisible.

"Thirsty."

I poured water into a glass and held it to his mouth while he drank while John propped him up, still with that tenderness he didn't know he had and I started to wonder what I didn't know. He looked at me then.

"Still here."

"Where else? You have to stop doing this, going missing. Next time you're grounded."

"Chance?"

"She's here, with her mother. They're fine. You did a good job on her leg," John said, and then told him the little guy with pertussis was in one piece too. Luka managed a nod and a half smile which died when he said "Patrique . . . "

"We brought him home." He nodded and the effort we all made not to think about how Patrique had died was almost tangible.

"Shower."

"No kidding. Why do you think you're in here on your own?"

"I'm sorry."

"Hey, go back to sleep. We'll get you cleaned up later. Your private nurse here can practice her sponge bathing." He turned to me and said "You OK here? I have a call I have to place to Kinshasa." I nodded and wished him good luck with that. Then again, luck seemed to have been on our side lately.

When John was gone it was back to silence. I didn't know what to say. I hesitated before sitting on the edge of the bed and then leaned in to kiss him; he turned his face away.

"I'm not clean."

"Who is?" I said, and he started to cry quietly, and I held him and he let me and he slept again.


	4. Part Four

CLEAN SHEETS – IV 

He healed fast, got his voice back. He let me clean him up, let me shave him, drew the line at accepting help cleaning his teeth. Two days in and I stood, fully clothed, propping him up under the shower because he'd refused the offer of a chair and Angelique rolled her eyes at me as I sloshed back with him to his bed, still laughing and even getting a little laugh from him too.

A lot of the time he didn't seem all there, his eyes vacant. It happened all the time, one minute he'd be listening to me, not saying much himself but in the same world with me and then he'd be gone; even if he looked at me and seemed to listen I couldn't tell what he was seeing or hearing, and I know he was as full as it was possible for him to have been with meds but it seemed like more than that and so I never asked him what happened, how it was that he came to be "le pretre", however much I wanted to, because I don't do that, I don't dig. That day though he smiled and it reached his eyes and for a minute he held my hand firmly, and I thought again that since we'd found him everything had seemed very quiet no matter what else was going on around us, I seemed caught in a little bubble of quietude. Weird.

I sat outside to dry in the sun and Chance's mother came and sat next to me. I didn't need to ask what had happened to her, I knew what had happened to her and I knew what the likely consequence would be. They'd left Chance alone and I thanked the God I didn't believe in for that.

She asked me about Luka and I said he was getting better. There was a long silence then and it was like she was waiting for me to ask her what had happened to him so in the end I did. When she finished I thought again that maybe I should reconsider the whole God business. The hell of it, it left me feeling sick, thinking of her, violated, covering her daughter's ears against the gunshots, the men dying either begging for their lives or accepting it, and Luka kneeling in the dirt without his shoes, waiting for his turn, like all those patients that wait . . . patiently, saying the prayers he'd said as a boy. But Sakina smiled and nodded toward the clinic and Luka and said they'd saved each other. I couldn't answer that because Luka's sentence had been commuted but we both knew she was carrying hers around with her, and she could see that in my eyes, in the half smile that was too twisted to be real. She shrugged.

"J'ai mon tresor toujours. Pour moi, ca suffit. Et vous, vous avez votre amour. Je sais q'il est un vrai homme de Dieu. Pas un pretre peut-etre, mais ce de que vous avez besoin, un prêtre ne peut pas vous donner", and she winked even as her smile faltered.

I went back to him then and for the longest time I stood and watched him sleep. I said his name, once, twice, a third time, and when I knew for certain that he couldn't hear me I said the words I had no right to say and no power to keep inside.

Money counts, you know? Of course you know and of course I knew. I'd been amazed at the 20,000 John had gotten his hands on in Kinshasa without blinking and I'd felt kind of mad at the same time because what couldn't Angelique have done with 20,000? But when he told me there was a plane lined up for Luka I could have kissed him. So thank God for money, you know?

He'd need help of course and who better than me, a nurse? For once Angelique didn't give me her cool, appraising, knowing look, she just nodded and said "Bien sur" and went on her way.

The day we left it took a long time to dress him and a couple of times he looked at me as though he didn't know what was going on, which he didn't, because any attempt to talk about what was to happen next left him confused and agitated so we stopped. Still, I'd speak to him, tell him what to do and he did it, an obedient child, and my voice seemed to bring him back to himself. So he submitted to my fussing, juggling Ivs and once he even giggled and you know, the relief of hearing him laugh, even just a little made my eyes sting.

Chance and her mother came to say goodbye. Chance had drawn a picture of herself in a white coat and stethoscope in front of the huge, gleaming building she imagined as US hospital to be. He ran a shaky finger over the image of the little girl. She wore a pink dress and had ribbons in her hair. She had two legs.

In the end I excused myself. I don't like goodbyes, not even other people's. John and Angelique and Debbie came with us to the airstrip to see us off. I don't think Luka properly understood, although he thanked John and kissed him and asked if he was coming along and when he said no he seemed to understand that. I took the letter John pressed into Luka's hands and wondered who Abby was. And then I realised I didn't care.

Translation:

"J'ai mon tresor toujours. Pour moi, ca suffit. Et vous, vous avez votre amour. Je sais q'il est un vrai homme de Dieu. Pas un pretre peut-etre, mais ce de que vous avez besoin, un prêtre ne peut pas vous donner" -

"_I still have my treasure; for me that's enough. And you, you have your love. I know he's a real man of God. Not a priest perhaps, but then what you need a priest can't give you_".


	5. Part Five

NOTE:

This is rather short but will be followed by another chapter in a day or so; I came to a natural break in the text and it felt right to end the chapter there.

CLEAN SHEETS V

There's something surreal about flying; slicing through the air in a metal cocoon, cushioned on upholstered seats, watching a movie maybe, listening to music, eating dinner, drinking coffee, replicating all the comforts of home while you're surrounded by clouds and nothingness. It's strange how fast the wonder, the impossibility of it all wears off. A little like being in love. We lose the wonder and settle into acceptance, into familiarity, into habit and sometimes we notice that lust has curdled into loathing or impatience or irritation or _ennui_, and instead of staring at the clouds with a stupid grin we notice we don't much like the food and the coffee is terrible. Well, I do. But for now I'm still staring at the clouds and I can't get enough of the food.

oOo

That flight was weirder than most. It was a medical transport so we had medics instead of flight attendants, antibiotics instead of pasta salad, IVs instead of in flight entertainment headphones and there's no drinks trolley. I could have used a drinks trolley.

It seemed unreal seeing him away from the heat and the dirt, his hair neatly cut in Kinshasa by a blind barber with a mouth full of gold teeth and a finger missing from his left hand. I didn't tell Luka he was blind. He's pretty mellow on his meds but that might have freaked him out. A couple of times I caught him looking at me and I wondered if he was thinking the same things about me, like when you run into someone you only ever see at work and for a minute you can't place them because they just don't look right in a bar or a shoe shop or the dry cleaners. I didn't ask him what he was thinking.

After Paris but before we get to Chicago he asked me to help him into some real clothes, so I wrestled him into his jeans, too big now, and he laughed as he pulled the belt in a couple of notches more than he's used to. More juggling with IVs so he could get into a clean tee and then I knelt to slide his shoes on. When I stood up he suddenly reached up and pulled me down against him.

"Thank you. For everything."

I scrambled away from him in a kind of panic because that sounded like an ending, and at the same time all the desire I'd been suppressing surfaced in a wave of heat in my fingers and toes, and in my face and between my legs.

"No."

"I don't want to keep you from – "

"No."

"But – "

"Hey, forget it, OK?" I know my smile is too bright, I know that Jean is suspicious about the few weeks I've told him I'll be spending with a recuperating "colleague". Sure he knows I don't let myself get lonely on these trips but he's not stupid and he knows there's something different here, and so do I. The only one who doesn't know it's different is Luka and I don't know how to tell him or even if I should. I'm still flying and you know, when you're thousands of feet up and the clouds are skimming past and the sun is so bright you can't stand it you don't spoil the moment by thinking of crashing and burning.

Do you?

oOo

He wanted to walk into the hospital but it was obvious even to him that real clothes didn't make for real strength in his legs or mask a too high temperature. A couple of people came up, welcomed him back, shook his hand and once he'd been talked into a gown and a bed a couple more people stopped by to say hello. The old guy who Luka called Frank talked up a storm, said he hoped he'd learned a valuable lesson about getting into other peoples' wars and trust him, he'd been in 'Nam, he knew about those things and had dead buddies to prove it. Still, his concern and his smile seemed genuine and as he left he said I should come and find him if the big guy needed anything. After he'd gone Luka looked confused and amused and said he knew he was really back and it didn't look like anything had changed.

For a moment I just sat and listened to the sounds of the hospital, took in the smell of the place, the feel of the fresh pillow slip under my hand, didn't even flinch when someone somewhere dropped an instrument tray with a crash. I was surprised to find that my eyes had slid shut and when I opened them his too were closed. I could tell that he wasn't sleeping.

"You OK?"

"Tired". He laughed then. "How long before I get to give you another answer to that?"

"Depends how good you are. You need anything?"

"No. Yes – a meatball sub."

"What?"

"I'm hungry."

"So where – "

"Across the street – Doc Magoos. God, I never thought I'd crave anything from that place."

"It's a diner?"

"Yeah – Salmonella Central, but . . . . "

I wondered if he wanted to be rid of me, to really be alone. Not unreasonable. It had been a long time since he'd had any privacy and who knew how long it would last.

"I'll see what I can do."

As I opened the door he called after me.

"Yes?" _Tell me it doesn't matter, tell me to stay._

"The letter . . . John's letter."

"Sure. I'll see whether she's around."

I somehow knew she would be.


	6. Chapter 6

_Author's Note:_

First of all I want to say that I'm rather embarrassed; I have been labouring under the delusion that I had in fact updated this, and some time ago at that. JoJo's review landed in my in box and on checking I discovered that, sure enough, there was no part 6. So, I either imagined updating or something untoward happened in the process. Personally I think I was hallucinating, but, whatever the case, my apologies to anyone who might have been waiting for this. I'm getting on in years.

CLEAN SHEETS – Part VI 

I was all bustle and business when I left him, got lost twice, had to ask my way, found myself wondering whether he's familiar with these particular corridors and stairwells, had the sudden, overwhelming desire to locate his locker. I was 14 all over again and blushed with the guilty knowledge. By the time I found my way to the ER I was grinning at myself too, my sense of well-being back in place. He was home, he was safe, and for the time being he was my prisoner.

She was there, of course she was, pointed out to me by another nurse when I asked for her. I'd asked about the letter on the plane and all Luka said was that she was John's girlfriend.

"Maybe his ex?"

"I don't know."

"You know her well?" I thought I did a pretty good job of not sounding too curious.

"We . . . we've worked together for . . . a while", but he hadn't looked at me as he spoke.

Ah. Worked together – and what else, my dear I wondered, but I hadn't asked, something else I didn't really want to know. After all, it wasn't him writing to her, was it?

I was surprised by how unremarkable she looked and then surprised at myself because I had no idea what I was expecting and then again because she shouldn't matter to me and I didn't know why she did. She was John's girlfriend, right? John's girlfriend, and I shook myself. Everything was all right.

She was small and pretty in an ordinary sort of way, older than I expected. The hair on the back of my neck stood up when I heard her speak his name, checking on how he was doing and my scalp prickled some more when I stepped up, able to tell her, and my smile was real because the news was good and the nearness of losing him was still so fresh that I still got a rush of happiness at the realisation that he was OK. And I knew more about Luka than she did, knew that he was till spiking on quinine but was lucid between fevers, knew he was hungry. If it came to that I probably knew more about John at that moment than she did. I let myself feel just a little sorry for her.

Her look was wary, confused, wondering who it was who knew all about Luka, maybe trying to place me, wondering if I worked there.

"Oh, you don't know! I'm Gillian, I was working with Luka and John in Congo."

"John? John . . . Carter?" What? How many Johns did she know in the Congo?

"And," I fished around in my bag, "he gave this to Luka to give to you." She took the letter and looked at it with a mixture of confusion and what looked like amusement. I got the feeling she wore that expression a lot and that it didn't mean she was amused

"He wrote me a letter?" Incredulous.

"Now there's a lost art."

I was glad to see Frank, the grouch who had visited Luka, glad to see a familiar face and I asked him where Doc Magoo's was.

"Burnt down" was the answer and the place suddenly seemed very noisy. Burnt down. Luka might say it didn't look like anything had changed but he was wrong. In the real world things had changed, as they must, moved on, raced ahead for all I – or he - knew. I realised that Abby had gone, headed off with her letter – so she was eager to hear from him after all which was sweet. I wasn't sure she'd feel the same after she'd read the letter. Just a feeling and probably wrong, but he'd said he'd been lost and now he was found but he wasn't here. Here must be where he'd gotten lost.

oOo

Frank walked me to the nearest diner, asked me about John, why he didn't come back with us. I hedged, told him there was so much work to do there.He snorted and said that was no shortage of work in Chicago either and at least the air conditioning worked two days out of three and you could drink the water without going blind or having your leg bitten off by a crocodile and there were maybe only half the number of machete attacks although the GSWs were probably right up there with the Congo and don't get him started on the crackheads and drunk drivers and cross dressers with stiletto related injuries. Still, under it all I thought there was a kind of respect for John's decision especially after he'd seen Luka stretchered in, a kind of grudging admiration for brothers in arms. Frank wore grudgingness like armour but it seemed pretty thin to me and easily dented.

oOo

He couldn't eat it all, so I helped him out and he smiled and reached to wipe sauce from my chin. It was such a little thing that, but I wanted suddenly to cry and said I needed some air and a cigarette and he should get some sleep.

I paced and paced, smoked two cigarettes down to the filter, but I didn't cry. Even better, I didn't think, didn't think for a minute about what would happen when he didn't need me any more because I'd cross that bridge when I came to it and it would be a couple of weeks at least. A lot can happen in a couple of weeks, right?

When I got back he wasn't in his bed, damn him. His jeans were gone from the back of the chair but his other clothes were still there and his meds were still on the bedside cabinet. If he'd absconded he'd done it in a hurry and half naked. I scooped up the meds and only then glanced through the window into the hallway. There he was - and so was she. I watched, fascinated, barely breathing as she shifted from foot to foot and he did the same and they smiled at one another. She moved toward him and I held my breath but she reached for the IV and did something unnecessary to it. I watched for a moment longer, their fidgeting and awkwardness and I saw it like it was written on the page of a book, saw that, oh yes, there'd been something there, felt my eyes actually get wider as I saw that she'd chosen John over him and nearly laughed at the memory of John's stricken look and the understanding that dawned with it, understanding of his compulsion to find what was left of a man he knew he'd misjudged and maybe thought he'd wronged.

Well fuck this.

I put a smile on my face, pulled back my shoulders and moved in, scolding him, smiling sweetly at her, laying hands on him, brushing the hair from his eyes and registering the rise in temperature, gave her another smile which said as clearly as I could without speaking _"Thank you so much for coming, it was most kind, but, as you can see, he has all the help he needs so you can go and please don't feel you have to hurry back; in short, and not to put too fine a point on it – back off." _

I settled him back in bed, got his meds down him and then asked "She OK?"

"Sure."

"John's letter . . . "

"Was personal."

Wow. I'd heard him use something like a command voice as we worked on Chance in Matenda, but this was different, this was final and for a moment I wanted to say I knew all about personal, son of a bitch, I'd cleaned him up and kept him clean when he was too sick to even know I was doing it, and don't think I can't see exactly what kind of personal there had been between him and Abby, and don't talk to me about personal. I didn't because he'd reached for my hand and was looking at me apologetically. "Not for me to tell" he said, softly.

"It's OK" I lied brightly.

"Tired?"

"A little". Another lie; I was more exhausted than I'd ever been in my life. I didn't know how long I could survive veering between dead tiredness and euphoric relief.

He shifted on the bed and held out his arm, gathering me against him as I lay down. He was asleep almost at once but I was awake because the silence which had surrounded us was being invaded, overwhelmed by the hum of reality, and even the sound of his heart beneath my ear couldn't drown it all out.


	7. Part VII

Long time no update. My muse ran off to who knows where and has only just got in touch with me again. Fickle. 

I've had about eight different versions of this chapter rattling around and in the end just had to opt for one. I hope it gels.

Part VII

Chicago after dark is a lot like any other city you don't know. It's just lights really and after the quiet of Luka's room after he'd been settled down for the night it seemed noisy even in the cab.

I had trouble reading the door code not just because it was dark outside his building but because his hand hadn't been steady when he wrote it. His neighbour looked at me suspiciously with hard brown eyes in an orange face when I said I'd come for the keys. I had Luka's AMI ID, still bloodied, and my own and he finally brought me a buff envelope which he said contained the keys and some other things Luka asked him to take care of and he gave me a pile of mail for good measure. I turned to go but he opened his door wider and lounged against the frame. Oh please don't.

"So where is the good doctor?"

"He's in the hospital."

"Back at work already?"

"No, no, he picked up malaria, needs to get his strength back a little before they'll let him go."

"Malaria? It's not contagious is it?"

"No, not contagious."

"I won't need a shot or anything?"

"Not even a pill, I promise."

"Say, you look beat, why don't you come in and I'll make us some coffee – or maybe you could use something a little stronger. I have – "

"You know you're right, I'm dead on my feet, been travelling a long time."

"You sure? You're not from round here, I can tell. You from Dr Kovac's neck of the woods? If he's sick maybe I can show you around Chicago, take in some of the sights."

Maybe he was being kind or maybe he was hitting on me, thinking malaria wasn't the only thing Luka had picked up over there but right then I didn't care. I only wanted him to shut up.

"I'm going to be pretty busy looking after Luka, he'll be home in a couple of days. But thanks."

"Suit yourself. Knock any time if you need anything." I fished out the keys and let myself in and for a moment I think I could have fallen asleep where I stood. I dropped my bag and the mail and the envelope on the floor and felt around for the light switch.

It was so utterly quiet in that apartment, despite the faint sound of the traffic from outside. I stood very still, feeling like a trespasser, feeling like I shouldn't move, shouldn't breathe.

Once I saw a TV programme about condors, the birds that fly over the Andes. Sharp edges of rock, snow against a blue, blue sky and the birds, wheeling on the air currents. I woke up later on the same night I'd watched it and in the dark I thought about those mountains, thought with a little shiver that they were there now, real, as I thought of them, that they'd been there before I was born, before my parents were born, before their parents were born. Sometimes I think of those mountains, think "They're still there with the condors gliding over them".

I had that same feeling now. This space, his space, had been here all along, waiting, untouched by everything that had happened to him, to us, like the river that runs through Congo, like Mont Royal, like those mountains, and I understood why the thought of them had made me shiver, really felt for the first time the massive indifference of the world to everything that touches us.

I don't know what I expected; a guy's place, messy, a coffee cup or beer bottle left on the table maybe, CDs heaped up, sports pages from newspapers from before he left lying around, dust. There was nothing. It was neat, clean, orderly. The refrigerator completely empty, turned off at the wall, its door left a little ajar, everything in its place, feeling like a museum, even down to the expertly lit paintings on the walls.

Abandoned.

There.

He hadn't meant to come back. This was something he'd left behind and something he didn't care about – or that didn't care about him.

I felt very cold suddenly and looked around for something to drink. There was a half bottle of slivovic and I knocked back a good slug, letting it warm me through. I was too tired to think but it occurred to me that I should call Jean, tell him I was OK, but when I picked up the phone there was nothing, and when I looked I saw that that had been unplugged too.

Upstairs I opened the wardrobe door, took in the suits and shirts, lifted a pullover to my face and breathed him in. The bathroom was as clean as everywhere else, like no-one had ever used it. I thought I should find out how to turn on the hot water heater but I was too exhausted to explore and couldn't face the guy from next door so I went back to the bedroom. The bed was stripped, quilt and pillows, a throw, a soft blanket piled neatly. I should find sheets and make it up but all I wanted was to lie down, my head on his pillow, sleep. The pillow smelt faintly of him and for now it would have to do. The throw and the blanket felt like heaven and for a few seconds before I fell asleep I let myself wonder about the Andes and crisp white snow.

oOo

The rows and rows of cans, packages and bottles, chill cabinets full of meat and poultry the heaps of fresh fruit and vegetables in the supermarket seemed indecent after what I'd been used to the last month For a long time I'd craved a hard, green, sour apple, wanted to feel the juice on my chin, pick the peel from between my teeth but now I can have them I hesitated. Come on Gillian, fill your cart, get on with it.

I don't know what he eats. I don't know what, if he has a choice, he eats. Fish? I know he grew up by the sea. Maybe he hates fish. Chicken. Chicken is safe, everyone likes chicken and I've seen him eat it. I can choose between factory farmed, free range and organic chicken, I can check the GI rating on the cereal packet, I can get low carb pasta for God's sake. I can go fuck myself actually because why am I so important that all my food has to be so pure, huh? In the end I get what I'd get for myself, butter, milk, eggs, bread, store cupboard stuff, fruit, vegetables, beer and a good Chablis.

Chicken. Free range organic. He's been sick, he should have the best.

And later I went to Marshall Fields and spent more money than I could afford on a pair of sheets made of beautiful Egyptian Cotton, like the snow on the mountains and I set them aside for a homecoming. He came home three days later, walking but weak and I helped him upstairs, telling him he must get into bed. He complained that he'd only just got out of bed and then stopped at the door of his bedroom and when he looked down at me I knew he understood about the sheets. He opened his mouth to speak, shook his head slightly.

"I – "

"I know. Come on, think of it, you'll be the first to lie on them. "

"Not alone, I – "

"Of course not alone. You think I'd miss out on brand new sheets? With you?" I was smiling but I couldn't look at him because if I did I'd cry and I didn't even know why.


	8. Part VIII

PART VIII

The couple of days I was there before Luka came home I got used to the apartment, dared turn on the CD player, the TV. In the end I had to get the guy from next door to show me how to turn on the hot water and then I deliberately got soap and water and talcum powder all over the bathroom to muss it up. I panicked then and cleaned it all up but it felt good at the time.

I went to visit him of course, spent hours there, took him the stuff he asked for, put up with his grumbling and wanting to leave, wheedled information about his blood count out of the staff, shook my head and once, when the blinds were drawn and no-one was around my mouth found his mouth and my hands found their way under the sheets and his eyes were wide and he protested. But not for long.

So now he was home and sleeping in those clean sheets. It had been heaven last night. Oh not that, he was too tired, but we had a whole huge bed and crisp sheets to ourselves, it was like a honeymoon, better than a honeymoon.

That first morning I didn't turn on the radio, I crept around in my bare feet even though Armageddon might have had a tough time waking him. I made coffee, watched the streets come to life below, decided to fix him breakfast in bed. As I set a tray on the table I knocked the envelope the neighbour had handed me onto the floor. Out of it spilled a couple of sealed letters, some other papers and a wallet, very old, worn very soft. The wallet had fallen open and looking up at me were a pretty, dark haired woman and a little girl, maybe four years old. I didn't need anyone to tell me who the father of that little girl was and I dropped the wallet like it had bitten me. Shit. I picked it up again and made myself look at their faces.

"_My children were dead"._

Children; more than one. I took a deep breath and sifted through the wallet but there was nothing else, no other little faces. I sat down and thought about that. The picture was small, worn, creased, a black and white snap but it was too precious to risk losing in Africa, wasn't it? Too precious. Too precious.

Too precious. Jesus – the only one? All he had of them? Of all of them?

Before I could process that thought a hand reached over my shoulder and plucked the wallet out of my fingers.

"I – it – I dropped –" I was making a bad job of it.

"OK."

"It just fell out of the envelope."

"I said OK." He put the wallet back in the envelope and made for the stairs.

"I was going to make breakfast."

"Not hungry."

"You have to eat."

He stopped at the foot of the stairs, hand on the rail and dropped his head.

"OK. Whatever you're having I'll have."

"I didn't mean to pry."

"I know."

He didn't move and I went to him, resting my head on his outstretched arm.

"Don't be angry."

"I'm not angry. Not with you."

I insinuated myself under his arm so that he had to look at me. "Keep it safe, OK?"

He nodded and I let him pass and stood at the bottom of the stairs and I could almost hear the swish of the condor's wings.

You'd think you couldn't get any more real than the agony and degradation of somewhere like Kivu, but you can. I'd – we'd – left that behind and here was a whole other real world that seemed more alien to me than anything the Congo had thrown at me. This reality was much more frightening because it was his and I wasn't part of it.

When I was little we visited some of my mother's family who lived in a house which stood by a wood; through the wood ran a stream, and over the stream reached the branch of a tree, and on the branch of the tree was a knotted rope and on the knotted rope my cousins, all much older than me, swung and got to the other side of the stream where they whooped and jeered and knew I was too little to do what they'd done, too scrawny to keep hold of the rope, my hands too small.

I went for it anyway, took a running jump, and for a few moments, with the soles of my feet hard against one knot and my hands held in place by another I was sure I could do it. But I wasn't big enough, hadn't gotten up enough momentum to set the rope swinging in a wide enough arc and it never even got close to the other side. There I was, stranded, my hands losing their grip. Slowly, slowly my hold loosened. I should have just let go and not prolonged the agony but I clung on until my fingers gave up and I fell into the cold water, my cousins laughing as I coughed and shivered and floundered. My mother was cross with me, and I spoiled my new holiday T-shirt. She never asked why they'd let me do it.

I've kept my hands on the rope pretty well since then, except for that one time years ago in Africa when I let myself go. And, you know, sometimes letting go is OK. But now, now I'm trying really hard to keep hold, to stop myself falling into the cold water because I think there are maybe rocks under there this time, wife and children shaped rocks which will tear me to pieces. I feel as though if I look up Luka will be there like my cousins, laughing at my miserable attempts.

Fact is, since that first night in Kisangani I don't think I ever really had hold of the rope in the first place.


	9. Chapter 9

He raised his wrist to his line of sight more times than I could count only to drop it again. They'd taken his watch, of course they had and up to now it hadn't mattered, time hadn't mattered.

So we went doentown and found him a watch more or less like his other and I said I wanted to pay for it. He laughed.

"No! Why would I do that?"

I looked at my shoes, at the other shoppers. "I don't know. Call it a souvenir."

He stopped laughing then and I could feel him looking at me while the guy behind the counter drummed his fingers, waiting for the annoying couple to make up their minds.

"Okay". And he reached out and laid his hand on my arm for a moment. I found a bright smile from somewhere and covered his hand with my own for a second, just a second. Time mattered now.

I didn't know what to do. Think of it, me not knowing what to do. More than once since Kisangani the words had filled my mouth and I'd swallowed them.

Even though I knew they couldn't be true, even though I knew them to be a logical impossibility there they were in my head every morning that I woke up and looked at him, every time we sat down to eat or watch a movie or walk by the lake, there they were.

I love you.

I don't know you.

I love you.

How do I love a man I don't know? Except I did know him, knew him in every way that mattered. I knew more than he could guess; I knew from what he didn't say what lay behind the omissions; I knew that there was a family shaped space – maybe even a love shaped space - in the very centre of him; I knew from the way he handled Kisangani that he had seen and done things I couldn't imagine and that they had nothing to do with NGOs; I knew from the paintings on his walls that he loved his father and I knew that none of what I saw around me – the cool apartment, the plasma screen, the state of the art hi-fi – meant anything to him at all.

I love you.

It was like the things your mother told you not to say in polite company and because she'd told you not to say them you could feel them burning a hole in your tongue, could feel them clamouring to get out of your mouth until you tried to find some relief by whispering them to yourself. Once, when I was 10, I sat at my grandmother's dinner table and said "fuck" as I wiped my mouth with my napkin and waited for the blow to fall. It didn't fall, no-one heard me. I felt relieved and cheated all at the same time.

I did what I'd done as he slept in Kisangani, said it aloud when I knew he couldn't hear me, when he was in the shower or grinding coffee, whispered it as quietly as I could as he sat across the table reading the newspaper, sometimes making no sound at all, just my mouth forming the words. It offered no relief.

I can deal with being in love. It pays to not know a man when you fall in love, it depends on it. It's been a long time since I came out the other side of in love to find that what I knew added up to loving.

When we made love for the first time after we got back to his place I knew just how much trouble I was in. It had been brief, both of us half asleep, but it was intense and sweet and I nearly said it in the rush of tenderness and relief and heat that shot through me when I came. It was like an undercover agent had come horrifyingly close to letting their true identity slip through a careless mistake, a hiccup of continuity; I knew I was a breath away from going up like straw.

That wasn't the deal, that wasn't our bargain. We were supposed to keep each other warm, we were supposed to get between one another and the misery and the hopelessness, that's all, and, you know, it's not nothing, that. But now, knowing what I knew – and I did know, I did – I saw that there was more to shield him from here than there; and I knew that he wasn't looking for that from me, probably never even stopped to think I'd want to do it. I felt pain at that that I hadn't felt in more years than I could count. That's what love does – it wakes up the dead parts of you. If you want the joy you take the fear and the pain too and I had both now. And, like to undercover agent I had to make sure I would never slip up again.

A couple of nights later when Jean called I told him I was coming home.

oOo

Today's the day. I have my things packed and last night I hardly slept. I didn't want to miss one second of being here even if he was sound asleep at my side. It had been a weird day. He'd had an appointment at the hospital and I'd ambled down to the ER to say hi from him. He didn't need me to say hi, he just didn't want me there when they told him that he was still anaemic, still not back to normal, still not well, still maybe needing someone to look after him.

Down by the desk I saw Abby who looked surprised to see me.

"Hey, still here?"

"Still here."

"How's Luka doing?" Before I can answer she ploughs on, "I've been meaning to stop by but you know how it is . . . " she drums her fingers on the chart she's holding, looks a little uncomfortable and I realise I haven't offered her the usual smile and reassurance, not told her not to worry about it. Instead I do something I don't understand.

"Why don't you come over tonight?"

"Oh, I – "

"No, come and have dinner, it would do us good to have company,"

"I'd like that . . . if I can get away on time I'll be over."

"Is Thai OK? I could live on it myself."

"Thai is good."

"Great. See you later." I felt as though my smile was nailed to my face.

oOo

I didn't tell him I'd invited her. He held my hand in the cab on the way home and when we got in he did something he hadn't done since we got to Chicago, he made the first move. Shutting the door behind me he turned me toward the stairs, hands on my hips, propelled me toward them, up them, into the bedroom where he lay me down and made love to me as only a man who knows it will be the last time can. I'd told myself I wouldn't cry, but I did and tried to hide my tears but he saw them and turned my face back to him and kissed them away. I wanted to kill him for that. Oh, Jesus, it was Matenda all over again. We talked about going back in the new year, January, maybe February, settled on a date for me to visit before then to make arrangements and for a few moments I was able to think outside the minutes I could hear ticking away , able to think about us in the future.

We showered, ordered dinner, ate as best we could while holding hands and Abby didn't show. I started to panic. The cab was ordered, my bags standing ready. Still she didn't come.

And then she did. He was surprised of course. She'd brushed out her hair, put on some make up looked prettier than before. "Gillian said I should stop by for dinner". She was smiling, almost drinking him in. Well of course, he was her friend and she'd thought he'd died. Of course.

"At ten o'clock at night?" I could hear the laugh in his voice.

Still, she came in, looked in surprise and confusion at my bags, and I knew right there why I'd invited her. Another person in the room meant it wasn't just me and him, meant I'd have to keep it together, not vomit up the pathetic rationalisations for staying, not see the unease and maybe even disgust on his face, that look men get when they're snagged on a needy female.

I expected him to be awkward but he wasn't. He kissed me like he meant it and there's a little added bonus right there. She didn't want him and now she gets to see how it is with someone who does. And maybe she doesn't care.

I'd argued earlier with him about seeing me off and made it plain that when I walked out the door it would be on my own and carrying my own bags. At the very end it's as simple as a smile and a shrug and a "See you later". I try to contain my low level panic as I wait for the elevator and every minute I'm in the cab, as I check in, as I sit in departures and even as I board the plane I'm thinking that I could still do it, I could still go back, or call and tell him, I could do that, couldn't I, it's not too late, this isn't the end all my options are still open. I could still say it.

I love you.

Of course I can't.


	10. Chapter 10

Part 10

Clean sheets I have in abundance; clean sheets and clean towels and a bath robe I could comfortably share with . . . with someone else; I have shampoo and shower gel that smells of sandalwood, and a bed that feels as big as a continent, and I can't help but remember when a cramped cot draped in mosquito netting felt like it held every thing a continent had to offer. It's maybe better not to think about that just now.

I knew when I called to confirm that I'd be arriving the next day that something wasn't right. There was a pause and then something I hadn't heard in his voice before, a trace of bitterness, as he said yes of course he remembered, it would be great to see me, he was looking forward to it. There are some lies which are told just to break your heart and others that are meant to protect it but break it anyway. And I knew all this, I heard all this but I turned the volume right down so I could ignore it altogether.

But he met me at the airport and I wanted to sing when I saw how much better he looked, wanted to grab the people all around us and say "Doesn't he look great?" I'd thought about seeing him, about him holding me, about being able to smile up at him, to kiss him all the time I'd been away from him but the reality of it, of him, outstripped even my fantasies. I'd forgotten how good he felt, and smelt, how completely he engulfed me, forgotten all of it, and I was glad that I had because the rediscovery of all those things took my breath away.

oOo

There was another toothbrush in the bathroom. I stood very still looking at it for a long time. Well, Gillian, why should you imagine he'd have no-one around? A quick inspection of the cabinet on the wall showed me no other evidence – no face cream, no box of tampons, no scent or tweezers or hairbrush or nail polish, nothing. So, whoever this was, she had no permanent presence here. That was good. Was this where the bitterness had come from? Had she been and was now no more? I inspected my face in the mirror for signs of concern, smoothed my features and smiled. She wasn't here and I was and I would not worry about what was not here.

And, you know, it's amazing what a couple of hours in bed with the man you've been thinking of every minute of every day for months can do. I didn't want to shower, didn't want to wash him off me but he pulled me in there after him and that turned out not to be such a bad thing after all. I was rinsing suds from my hair when I heard the doorbell; dinner I supposed and realised I was ravenous.

It wasn't dinner and he didn't tell me who it was but he seemed ill at ease suddenly and I wondered whether, if I opened the door, I'd catch the scent of someone, a scent which would have been left on him some time, a scent which, if I ever smelled it again, on the subway or in the street, would hit me with a little jolt.

oOo

I'm not sure why I did it really; I've learned enough in my time to know that it's never a good idea to surprise a guy at his place of work, but we didn't have a lot of time together and I thought maybe I'd run into John and we could all get coffee together or something. And maybe I thought I'd see enough to be able to put a face to the owner of the toothbrush.

For a moment I hardly recognised him. A shirt and tie, lab coat, he looked like a regular doctor and that made me smile. He let me kiss him, didn't really kiss me back, and told me he couldn't get away. I told him I'd see him at the end of his shift and when I did, when I walked in and saw him talking to the little blonde, I knew. She glanced over her shoulder, following his gaze, saw me, said something and walked away from him, anger written in every line of her body.

I lasted as far as the ambulance bay, trying to coax him into going dancing, ready to say we could dance alone at home, that would be as much as I needed. His silence was deafening, deafening even for me and oh Jesus the words were coming out of my mouth and I was asking if he was in love with her, the little nurse, and he didn't answer and didn't have to, because I knew that if he wasn't he thought he might be one day soon and even if that never happened, what we were to each other – or what I was to him – wasn't what he wanted any more.

I knew then that I should have told him before, stopped whispering the words so he couldn't hear them, that it was too late and it wouldn't matter if I hired a sky writer to trail them across the Chicago sky, they weren't words he'd ever hoped for from me. I wanted to be angry with him for not telling me what i was walking into but I couldn't, I just couldn't.

It took a few seconds for me to realise I was crying and that I really, really had to get away because once I started in earnest it would take a very long time for me to stop. I had no right to be jealous and I was; I had every right to kiss him and wish him well and I did and he never spoke.

I don't expect ever to hear his voice again. I didn't tell him that I'd ended it with Jean because it isn't fair to a man to sleep with him while you think of someone else, and I didn't tell him I'd been checking out nursing vacancies in Chicago, I didn't tell him any of that and now I'm glad that I didn't because if he knew how far I'd fallen I think he would have found it even harder to look at me.

oOo

I have a beautiful view here; I can see for miles over the city, and it's cold and clear so the lights twinkle as I look at them. The one good dress I brought with me, the one I was going to wear when I told him I'd finished with Jean, is very becoming, though I say it myself. I'm looking good; no-one would ever know that my heart is broken, and that the literal, physical truth of that cliché has never been more real to me than now. Well, there are ways to mend a broken heart, aren't there?

The hotel bar is large, dimly lit, sparsely populated, and the guy at the bar looks surprised for a moment when I slide onto the stool at his side. He's tall, clean shaven, good looking, and, obviously, as his left hand dips into his pocket to emerge a moment later, fingers flexing, married. I smile at him in the mirror behind the barman.

"Good evening ma'am, what can I get you?"

"Vodka rocks with a twist."

"Coming right up."

As he sets the drink down in front of me I hold out my key card and right on cue the guy at my side says "Allow me."

His name is Mike, he's in medical equipment and he's in town for a sales conference, some big contracts to be had, he has high hopes for his commission and what is it that I do?

"I'm a nurse"

"No kidding! How about that! You work in Chicago?"

"Montreal, I'm just here visiting."

"Family?"

"A friend."

"You meeting them here? The restaurant is good."

"No, I've kind of been stood up. He has to . . . work."

And there it is, the light has snapped on in his head and he changes gear. He talks smoothly over more drinks and I talk back, laugh a little, just enough to egg him on. His eyes are a very bright blue and they're twinkling at me with something like genuine good humour and joie de vivre and I need that very much right now. I like him. 

Around midnight he leans even closer to me and slides his arm around my waist. I know what's coming next, I know how it will go, I'm an old hand at this.

"It seems a shame to break things up." I don't answer and he leans in to me, his mouth close to my ear, just close enough to raise gooseflesh on my arms as his breath brushes over me.

"You know, what happens in Chicago . . . stays in Chicago." Still I don't answer but my heart is beating a little too fast. He brushes my arm with the backs of his fingers. I close my eyes and I'm thinking of hazel eyes and dark hair and long, long fingers and eyelashes that could sweep your heart clean out of your chest, and I'm aching to be held and not to have to care about an afterwards, the old dance, it works, it works for me every time. He's stood up and is speaking again. "What do you say – you want to go back to my room?"

I open my eyes and see not dark hair but fair, not hazel eyes but blue. The ache recedes and I look up at him with a smile, knowing that it works for me every time, knowing it will work this time, and through my smile I say "You know what - I don't believe I do."

END


	11. EPILOGUE

**EPILOGUE**

A short piece to include some recent developments.

My friend Yolande is getting married. When she said she wanted to spend a weekend away with her women friends I was all for it. When she told us where she wanted to go I joined in the general enthusiasm. When I was left alone to think about it, it was Proust's madelaines, a deluge of memories and sensation and sadness.

Chicago.

Don't get me wrong. I haven't spent three years pining. There have been men, a few, and I'd be lying if I said it was all bad or that I sobbed myself to sleep beside them, I didn't, I had fun with them.

Me and Luka, fun isn't how I remember it. It would be a lot easier to say it was, but I'm not stupid, I know it for what it was, what I let myself become. Didn't make losing it hurt any less, doesn't mean I haven't compared those others to it. Not to him – you can't compare one person to another without making them both nothing. But how I felt then and how I've felt since, I can't help but compare that.

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness. Well, not quite but a warm, clear early autumn Sunday and I'm alone in the park. The others are still in bed and I don't expect then to surface before the middle of the afternoon. I don't know how much we drank last night but I kind of lost interest when they started on the cocktails with pornographic names. I stuck to the vodka and I'm glad I did. The colour of what Yolande threw up into the toilet when we got in isn't something a grown woman should be responsible for. Maybe I'm growing up. Or growing old, I don't know. I think maybe my liver will be glad of whatever it is.

There's a café by the pond and the coffee smells good. There is a little table by the window with a view over a playground and sandpit, a few moms and kids, a handful of weekend dads pushing their weekend kids on the swings.

That's not all. There's a face I know. She's sitting on steps near the sandpit, her legs stretched out in front of her and her arms out behind, leaning back on her hands, eyes closed, smiling a little in the sun.

She looks different, softer somehow. I think at first that she's gained a little weight but that's not it. She looks . . . happy. A child squeals and she straightens up, looking to see what happened, a little tense maybe, but she relaxes as a toddler is scooped up by his mom, tears dried, calm restored. She smiles like she understands.

I can't explain why I can't take my eyes off her, why I don't do the obvious thing and go and say hello. It isn't that I'm wondering why she's there, I mean it's a nice little spot, it's nice to see kids playing in the sun, although she's not a woman I'd have imagined indulging in that particular pastime, but the next moment it all falls into place. There's a stroller the other side of her, and I don't know, I'd just thought it was empty, the little occupant off with its mom. But she turns and gets up and then she bends over the stroller and lifts a baby out, a baby maybe four months old, a boy. He's grizzling and she jiggles him a little, smiling at him, kisses his face and then settles down, arranging her jacket for discretion's sake, unfastens the bottom buttons of her shirt, puts him to her breast. Her face takes on the universal look of contentment.

Abby has a baby. A pretty baby with a fuzz of dark hair.

I can't explain my surprise. People have babies all the time and in the time since I last saw her a lot can happen. But surprised I am and unaccountably uneasy too. It isn't anything to do with John, I know that. He got married, I know that, some woman he met in Africa. Last I heard from Debbie he was in Darfur, though his wife wasn't there with him, I don't know what was going on there. Long distance relationships, well . . .

Still, Chicago is a big place, and it seems she's found someone, someone's found her. I find myself smiling. I'm pleased for her and decide that I should go and say hello, give her my congratulations. And who knows, maybe I can ask a discreet question or two about what's going on at the hospital, see how he's doing with the little nurse, maybe even manage that without embarrassing myself. I fix my smile.

I'm putting my bag over my shoulder and getting ready to head over to her when I see him and the strength goes out of my legs. The chair scrapes noisily as I sit heavily and the guy at the next table looks at me, eyebrows raised, wondering if I'm OK. I smile at him, shake my head, I'm fine, and he goes back to his sports pages.

It could be a coincidence, he could just happen to be taking a walk, but it's not, because he's heading straight for her, smiling as she looks up at him, and she's smiling back, not a smile you give a colleague, and now he's stooping over them, kissing her, kissing the top of the baby's head and settling himself beside them, leaning back on his hands just like she had earlier, but he's not closing his eyes and taking in the autumn sunshine, he's watching them, smiling a little. He needs to shave, looks a little weary. Just come off his shift then. She says something to him and he laughs and shakes his head before leaning in and whispering something in her ear, and she laughs back at him. He moves then, sitting on the step above her so that she can settle herself between his legs, lean back against his thigh and he can look down and watch as the baby – their baby – feeds, and run his hand lazily over her hair.

It's so intimate, it's so right that I can't breathe. I've seen the distant cousin of this look he has on his face – with the kids in Matenda, with Chance, the little guy with pertussis; but this, this is so totally pure, so completely the look he was born to wear, so _right_, that my eyes sting. This is the look on the face of the man who took that battered black and white snap of a pretty little girl with her mother; this is the look of a man who will always have a treat for a good boy in his coat pocket, who will magically produce a coin from behind an ear, who will allow himself to be scaled like a mountain, who will eventually hoist this little boy onto his shoulders, almost too high, top of the world, king of all he surveys. This is what Luka looks like.

I'm embarrassed, realizing that the stinging in my eyes has turned to tears. I'm trying to work out who I'm feeling sorry for but then I laugh a little, understanding that it's happiness – for him, for her, for everyone who ever found everything they thought they'd never have right there in the palm of their hand. I don't wonder about the little blonde because it doesn't matter. Whatever Abby and Luka had before that didn't fit right they've put it back together, and when she looks up at him I can't even feel envy, because I know that however often I might have looked at him like that he'd never return like he is now and I want that for him, wanted it back then, want him to have it for ever.

Is that what love is? Wanting so much for those gaps at the heart of someone to be filled and not caring so much who fills them? Wanting someone to be happy more than you want them to be with you? If it is then I guess I can be proud to say I know what it is to love someone.

And then he looks up, looks right at me. For a second it seems it doesn't register, like he doesn't see past the reflections in the window, but then he sees me, I can see him take a breath, not know what to do. He's waiting, wondering whether he should nudge Abby and point me out, whether they should make their way over, whether he should hug me awkwardly, ask me why I'm here, let Abby tell me all about the baby and for a minute I want that, want so badly to hear his voice, get close enough to have the scent of him, feel his hands on me, press a kiss to his face. But instead I shake my head with a little smile. He looks away and then back at me and nods briefly. I raise my coffee cup to him and mouth _"Congratulations"_. A second – and then he smiles, a real smile of such brilliance that I can't help but grin back at him.

The moment is broken, as it must be, by Abby. She hands him his son and gets to her feet, straightening her clothes, before taking the baby back and settling him in the stroller and then holding out a hand to Luka to help haul him to his feet. She sets off, and he follows but a second later he turns back, looks past the reflections again and gives me a little salute, one veteran survivor to another and forms the words "Thank you". And then he goes after them, his arm settling across her shoulders, stooping a little to compensate for his height, sun on his hair. And then I can't see them at all.

The guy with the sports pages is looking at me again and I smile at him a bit sheepishly, shrug. He looks at me a second longer and then passes me his napkin to wipe my eyes.

"Everything OK?"

I smile again. "Fine. Everything is fine".

And it is.


End file.
